A. Field
The invention relates to a container for solid or pasty products, as well as for those that are flowable or can be removed by dipping, in particular food products, comprising a lower container part for receiving the product, as well as an upper container part embodied as a container lid, wherein the lower container part has a continuous rim extending around its container opening and wherein the upper container part consists of a collar element, which extends around the container opening and encloses it in a collar-like manner, and of a substantially flat lid element, and is releasably fastened on the rim of the lower container part.
B. Related Art
A container of this type is known from EP-A-1 693 309.
As a rule, it generally applies that such containers are made of a plastic material and, as a rule, are produced by means of known injection molding technology. Containers of this or similar types are commercially available in most different sizes and are employed in most different shapes for all possible products which must be packaged in a sanitary, or respectively germ-free manner. Products, for example contained in such containers as their packaging unit, and offered in grocery stores are, for example dairy products of all types, meat and sausage products, but also vegetable and fruit products, as well as finished products in a refrigerated or non-refrigerated form.
Since the containers in accordance with this type are mass-produced and are intended to contain the products described above by way of example in a sanitary, germ-free and airtight manner, it must be possible to produce them in a cost-efficient manner in order to be accepted in the market place, i.e. on the one hand by the makers of the products, and on the other by their consumers. Furthermore, in compliance with special legal regulations, such containers must show, as completely as possible, information regarding their contents, the composition of the products, the nutritional contents of the products, as well as information regarding the date of production and the expiration date, as well as definite information, furthermore legally required in certain countries, regarding the compatibility with health regulations of the products in the container, and the like.
For this reason, such containers are as a rule provided with special labels providing such information and the respective parameters regarding the product to the consumer. In many cases, the name of the manufacturer, certain legally protected trademarks, and the like, are contained on the label, and as a rule, in the case of many of these products sold in such containers, the product itself is pictured, for example the sausage product, the cheese product, or a product in the form of a paté or the like.
The separate labels have the disadvantage that they make the production of the container considerably more expensive since, following the filling of the container with the product and closing of the container, the label must be placed either on the container itself, the lower container part, or possibly on the container lid and the actual container.
A further serious problem in connection with such containers lies in that in the course of opening the container by lifting the lid which, in the generally known yoghurt and cottage cheese containers, is merely constituted by an aluminum foil, the lid is not torn off at the actual locations in the rim area provided for this, but that instead the actual lid tears, so that in that case the opened container can no longer be closed even temporarily, if the product stored in the container has not been completely removed, or respectively used up. With another type of a closure for such containers, in which a foil imprinted in the manner described above has been glued to the actual lid, an attempt to open it shows the very serious disadvantage that the foil is separated from the actual container lid, i.e. is torn off it, without the connection of the container lid with the actual container being released, i.e. the container cannot be opened, which, however, is the actual goal.
A third variation of containers is known in which a lid, produced in the course of the manufacture of the container lid in accordance with the method of the so-called “immolded label (IML)”, is already connected in the injection mold with the foil constituting the exterior closure of the container lid, and a rim area of the foil extending past the container lid is connected with the container.
Such containers have the serious disadvantage that the label, or respectively the foil, which are not reinforced in the rim area of the container lid, are uncontrollably torn off or ripped in the course of opening the container, and furthermore that, because of the notch effect between the foil and the container lid during tearing off, the foil is uncontrollably torn off the container lid in spite of the use of the “immolded label” technology, and the container can only be opened by using an extraneous tool, such as scissors, or respectively a knife. It is obvious that a lid opened in this way is no longer capable of closing the container opening even in a makeshift manner in case the product in the container has not yet been completely removed.
A further substantial disadvantage is that in many cases the soiling of the surroundings, or respectively of the consumer or of the user who wants to open a container embodied in this way, is the result.
A container is known based on EP-A-1-475 314 of the same applicant, in which the disadvantages mentioned above in connection with containers up to now and with container lids have been avoided in a very elegant and efficient manner.
The use of the container of the same applicant for various container contents for mass use, and therefore for mass production, requires very cost-efficient solutions for producing such containers, see above, in which case it is intended to reduce the costs still further, also in regard to the container of the kind mentioned at the outset.
A substantial factor driving the costs are the high manufacturing expenses for the tools for the injection molds for manufacturing the previously described containers, in particular also the container in accordance with this type. It is possible to state with some exceptions that the lower the manufacturing expenses of injection molds, or respectively tools, the simpler the products produced with them seem to be. The term “simplicity” in connection with the manufactured end product should be understood in such a way that these can be produced in continuously fewer process steps, but can nevertheless constitute a highly complex, but very efficient end product at the end of production. Thus it is attempted to make a very simple manufacturing tool available, by means of which it is possible to produce in a simple manner a possibly highly complex, highly effective end product, in this case a container in accordance with the type discussed herein.
Although in principle this goal has been achieved with this kind of container, with containers of this type the requirement for cost efficiency in their manufacture continues to exist. As mentioned at the outset, these containers are as a rule one-way products which, after having been manufactured, filled with food, and following the consumption of this food in this container, are then disposed of as empty containers, i.e. they are either thrown into the household trash, or they are returned in the form of raw material from which they were produced into the raw material cycle.
Besides the production of the containers, i.e. the manufacturing steps of the containers, consisting of the upper container part and the lower container part embodied in accordance with the type of container, the manufacturing of the injection molding tool is a very cost-intensive factor, see above, which is a direct part of the final manufacturing cost of these containers, depending on the number of containers to be produced by it. It is possible to make the rough statement that the simpler the injection molding tool is designed, the lower is its manufacturing cost, and the simpler the injection molding tool is designed, the simpler the process steps can as a rule be performed by means of the tool, in order to form the complete container, in particular the upper container part (the lid), and the faster the container, or respectively its components, can be produced.